


Five times Nicky went hungry, and one time he didn't

by AMRV_5



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Body Worship, Canon-Typical Violence, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Hollywood do not interact, Hurt/Comfort, In this house we love and appreciate healthy and realistically strong bodies, Just warning for that last one though it isn't fully accurate, M/M, Religious fasting, Starvation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:27:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27607619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AMRV_5/pseuds/AMRV_5
Summary: The corners of Nicky’s eyes crinkle with a barely suppressed smile. “Can you not see how terribly I am suffering? Surely I must be disappearing before your eyes.”Joe looks him over. Nicky fills out his clothes attractively, broad chest pulling his t-shirt taut, a sliver of soft stomach exposed as the fabric rides up. Nicky catches his admiring gaze and flexes ostentatiously.-------A 5+1 fic: Five times Nicky starves over the centuries, and one time he decidedly doesn't.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 32
Kudos: 370





	Five times Nicky went hungry, and one time he didn't

_ Jerusalem -- 1099 _

Yusuf loses track of the number of times they kill each other. It becomes a sort of game, almost, if the definition of “game” could bear the weight of tens of gruesome deaths. He charges unhesitatingly into battle and unerringly he finds his invader. Or the invader finds him. They fight until one of them dies and is dragged away by his fellow soldiers, though more often than not they die together. Their fights are fierce and wild, all the more aggressive for their lack of fear.

Something is different this time, however. When Yusuf dreamed of the invader, he saw him strong and unwavering, sword raised to kill, his powerful body driving forward with all its might. The invader does not look like this now, and maybe never had as long as Yusuf has seen him. The man before him is covered in blood and dust, and what he can see of the man’s face behind his ventail and the strange, conical helmet he wears, is thin and sunken. Like a starving dog. 

This day’s fight has been slow, and generally disappointing. Yusuf had practically danced around the invader, swiping at him from behind and the sides before the man could register where he’d darted off to. He’d yet to land a single blow on Yusuf, and in fact seemed hardly able to lift his blade. 

“You are a disappointing adversary today, demon,” Yusuf informs the invader. The man growls something back in his own language and takes a few more labored swipes with his sword -- long, undoubtedly extremely heavy -- and then sways. Stumbles. Falls a moment later. His hand clutches at the mail above his heart as he rolls onto his back, and Yusuf lowers his blade. It would be ignoble to murder a man who has fallen. Especially this man, who he has battled with so fiercely. He is certain his God means for him to slay this invader more nobly.

“Give up so soon?” Yusuf taunts, using the long reach of his blade to shove the invader’s helmet off without getting into grappling range in case this is a new tactic the enemy wishes to use to mislead him. He’d prefer to maintain his higher ground. 

The invader does not respond, only lies there breathing hard in the hot summer sun. He does not attempt to rise, not even when Yusuf pricks his neck with his sword. The wound heals quickly, of course, but it is the blood that catches his eye. It does not flow freely, but beads thickly at the site of the cut. Barely liquid. Yusuf frowns, and pricks him again. The wound is slower to heal, though the blood gels just as thickly. 

The invader’s starving dog eyes catch Yusuf’s before he can prick him a third time. Yusuf is used to seeing righteous rage, anger, bloodlust, even a bizarre and horrible joy in those strange pale eyes, but now he finds only fear. 

The invader coughs, and weakly thumps his own chest. He says something in his language, throaty and sharp with rolled r’s. Yusuf shakes his head. The invader’s eyes roll back in increasing terror, his breath coming harder with every moment that passes. “Dead I,” he manages in Yusuf’s language, reaching out imploringly. “You dead I.” 

“What do you mean? You intend to kill me?” Yusuf levels his blade once more at the invader’s neck, harmless though the man may seem at this moment. 

The invader stares at him in apparent relief and then tilts his head, baring his neck. “Dead I,” he repeats, gasping in pain as something inside of him that Yusuf cannot see gives out. “You dead I, I life. Dead I not you life not have.” 

Though the invader butchers his tongue abominably, apparently only familiar with the sort of vocabulary one might encounter on the battlefield, Yusuf knows what it is the man wants. “Kill you, so you may come back?” he asks, and feels a sympathetic bolt of fear strike through his heart. Neither of them know why they cannot die, but thus far have only died at the other’s hands. If the invader perishes of something besides the steel of Yusuf’s blade, will he return to life? 

“Dead I!” the invader cries out once more, his fear now echoed by Yusuf. He moans in pain, back arching against an invisible wound, hand still fisted in the mail above his chest. 

Yusuf brings his blade down through the man’s exposed neck with all his might, feeling the tip of it plant solidly into the dirt. The invader smiles faintly, blood pouring out of his mouth, as the light fades from his eyes. After a moment, Yusuf plants his boot on the man’s shoulder and pulls his sword out with a sickly sucking noise. He wonders if the invader would do the same for him.

_ Somewhere southeast of Aleppo -- Two months later  _

Yusuf whoops, shedding his clothes as fast as he can. Water -- fresh water -- runs in a wide, deep stream just ahead of them. It has been almost three days since they last filled their waterskins, and surely thrice as long since either of them had had the pleasure of washing. The water is cold, but soothingly so, when he dives in. He resurfaces with another joyful shout. Nicolò -- his nemesis-turned-tentative-friend -- stands at the edge of the river bank watching. 

“Come in!” Yusuf calls, moving until he’s chest-deep in the water. “Ah, how I miss bathhouses. Do you have those in Genoa?” 

Nicolò perks up at the mention of Genoa. “We have what in Genoa? What is the word?” he asks, much more certain in his grasp of Yusuf’s language than he was even a week ago. Yusuf has, in turn, been trying to improve his understanding of Nicolò’s. There was a long week where they communicated in a frustratingly primitive way, tapping objects and saying individual words to each other in their respective languages. Without much else to do during their long countryside wanderings away from the violence of battle, they had gained facility in each other’s language quickly. 

“Bathhouse,” Yusuf says in his language, and then in Nicolò’s, “Water house. For clean yourself.” 

Nicolò grins in understanding, repeating the word. “Ah! Yes, we this have. Big house for be clean and talk.” He mimes a large, flat space, and then a silly, self-conscious gesture that seems to imply the scrubbing of dirt off one’s sides. He gives the word in his own language. “Yes?”

“Yes! I miss it.” Yusuf grins back, thrilled that despite their mutual butchering of language, they’re already communicating pleasantly. “Now come!” 

“In there?” Nicolò asks, pointing towards the river. 

Yusuf nods entreatingly. “It is nice. Not hot,” he says, and then in his own language, “You are due for a bath, my companion. Your stink should be considered a deadly weapon in close quarters.” 

Nicolò, despite not understanding what has been said, appears to recognize he is being teased, and blushes prettily underneath his coating of grime. He says something in his own language, too fast to catch, and then in Yusuf’s, “No looking.” 

“Fine,” Yusuf says, rolling his eyes and turning away. The soft sounds of shifting fabric give way to tentative splashes, and then a loud exclamation. 

“Cold!” Nicolò gasps, hugging himself and shivering when Yusuf turns to him. 

The joke Yusuf was going to make about northerners being used to the cold dies on his tongue. Nicolò is not a small man -- his broad shoulders and height are undeniably impressive -- but here, in the river, divested of his clothing, he looks dangerously fragile. His collarbones and ribs arc out dramatically, pale skin stretched tight across the bone. His stomach is a hollow from the bottom of his ribs to the sharp jut of his hipbones. It has been a lean set of weeks for them both, and Yusuf himself is certainly not immune to the effects of months of walking combined with scarce food, but Nicolò looks half-dead. 

“Is this what killed you on the battlefield that day?” he asks, trying to keep his horror contained. Somehow he has never really had a good look at Nicolò underneath his clothes, though they have been traveling together for some time. He’s nearly certain of it, now -- the invaders must have all been starving, Nicolò included, and he had run his body to the last of its strength in their fight. 

Nicolò looks at him, uncomprehending. He seems to catch something in Yusuf’s expression that unnerves him, though, and he wraps his thin arms around himself and looks away. 

“Hunger? You die from hunger?” Yusuf asks in Nicolò’s language. “You die from no eating?” 

Nicolò’s expression darkens and he begins to scrub his arms, dried blood and dirt washing away to reveal skin even paler than Yusuf remembered. “Yes,” he says, still trying to communicate in Yusuf’s tongue, “many. Many die from not eat.” 

“I am sorry,” Yusuf says, genuine, and lays a comforting hand on Nicolò’s shoulder. “To die this way is not pleasant.” 

Nicolò makes a vague noise of acknowledgement, and then hums appreciatively when Yusuf begins to wash dirt from the part of Nicolò’s upper back the man can’t quite reach. 

As Yusuf runs his hands across the sharp protrusions of Nicolò’s spine, he wonders how his friend might look with his weight restored to him -- broad, powerful, yielding flesh where now there is only harsh bone -- and shivers.

  
  


_ Outside Constantinople -- 1255 _

“This is abysmal,” Nico whispers, shivering, wrapped in blankets. “Why can’t sickness just kill us immediately? Or be healed away before we begin to suffer?” 

Iosef sighs, wiping his lover’s forehead with a cool cloth. “I know, my love. I cannot bear to see you suffer. You need only say the word and I would, much as it would pain me, devise for you a quick end.”

“And come back just as sick? It must run its course.” Nico shudders violently and grits his teeth. “I feel like I am melting inside.” 

“I know, love. I know.” Iosef presses a hand to Nico’s face, flushed red with fever. “I think it will not be long now.” 

“Thank God,” Nico says, face white with pain. Iosef’s heart aches in sympathy. 

“Do you regret it?” Iosef asks. “Caring for that child in his sickness? You may have been spared had you left him.”

Nico coughs again, a rough sound that tears itself from somewhere deep in his chest. “Never. This is what we do, no? Help others. We take on the harms others cannot suffer and are no worse for it.” 

“You are somewhat worse off for it,” Iosef corrects gently. The consumption has weakened his Nico significantly, thinning him out, narrowing his face, sharpening his edges. He has not been able to keep a bite of food down in days. It reminds Iosef of those first terrible months they had traveled together, Nico half-starved and then, terribly, actually starved, Iosef not much better off after a time. 

“It is more than worth it,” Nico says, rasping. His lips are painted red with blood that is coming from some inside hurt Iosef is powerless to fix. “I could not have left him --” another cough wracks his body -- “to suffer alone.” 

“Ever a knight,” Iosef says, lowering himself onto Nico’s bed.

Nico tries to reply, but only wheezes painfully, a horrible crumpling noise coming from his chest. Ioseph presses a soft kiss to Nico’s forehead. If he falls ill, Nico will be there to take care of him. That his love can die comfortably is his only consideration now. He wraps an arm around his lover’s too-narrow waist, presses himself along his back, and waits to feel his heart stop as he struggles uselessly for breath, and then, after a long interval of minutes that will never cease to terrify him, restart. 

“Oh, God,” Nico says, awakening slowly. “That was a bad one.” 

Iosef buries his face in Nico’s back, breathing in the sweet musky scent of his sweat, reassured by the regular rise and fall of a newly healthy pair of lungs. “How do you feel now?” 

Nico shifts, bringing a bony hand to rub the beard that has accumulated on his cheeks in the last few weeks. “Unshaven,” he decides, and rolls over to face Iosef. “And hungry.” 

“I can help with both of those,” Iosef says, heartache easing slightly. 

“Yusuf,” Nico grabs his shirt sleeve before he can fully leave the bed. “Thank you, my love. I could not live without you.” 

Iosef laughs despite the tears he can feel forming in his eyes. “Nor I without you. Now let’s find something for you to eat.”

_ London -- 1747 _

They all remain frozen for a long moment, Andromache with her hand flat on the table, Nicoli in a low defensive posture, Giù leaning by the fireplace. 

“My God. Sorry,” Nicoli says at last, looking almost as confused as Andromache. “I do not know why I did that.”

Giù remains still, calmly standing beside the fireplace, but exchanges a look with Andromache. Whose hand is still firmly pinned to the table with a knife. 

“Who knows why we do anything?” Andromache asks, trying for humor and falling flat as she pulls the knife out of her hand with a wince. “Caught me by surprise, though, and that doesn’t happen often. Sorry for trying to steal your apple. I’ll ask first next time.” 

Nicoli’s expression is rapidly tilting from confusion to genuine distress. “Andromache…” 

“Don’t worry about it, Nicoli. It happens.” Andromache ruffles his hair, as though he’s a toddler with a broken toy and not a centuries-old soldier who has just stabbed her on instinct. “Finish your dinner. There’s more by the fire.” 

“This is true,” Giù says, stepping forward and laying a gentle hand on Nicoli’s shoulder. “I will be back shortly, my love. Alright for now?” 

Nicoli nods silently, staring blankly at the table where a bit of Andromache’s blood is drying. 

“Alright,” Giù says, and quietly points Andromache to the front door. They walk out together into the late autumn chill, leaving Nicoli in the warm safety of the house. 

They stand together in silence for a moment before Giù sighs and gestures back at the house. “He will be feeling bad about this for years.”

Andromache says nothing, staring distantly at the stars above their heads. 

“I am sure he meant nothing by it,” Giù says. “Nicoli has not a malicious thought in his head.” 

“He starved to death,” Andromache says, apropos of nothing. 

Giù looks over at her in surprise, though she is still staring up at the stars. “Yes. Many times. I did as well, but for him it was always worse. And happened far more often. He told you?” 

“No,” Andromache says, finally turning to give him a grim smile. “But I recognize the signs.”

“Signs,” Giù says, worrying suddenly that he has missed something, that Nicoli is dying and he has not seen it happening right under his nose, in his own home. 

Andromache pulls him into a half-hug. “He’s fine, don’t worry yourself. I just mean that usually families don’t stab each other over apple slices.” 

“No, they do not,” Giù says, returning Andromache’s tentative smile. “A unique family, this one.” 

“Unique indeed,” Andromache says. “You take good care of him.” 

“And he takes care of me.” Giù hugs himself, rubbing his sides to generate warmth. “It’s cold out here. Are you coming back inside?” 

Andromache shakes her head, staring back to the stars. “I’ll stay out for a while longer. You go back inside. Feed your husband before he brings out the knife again.” 

  
  


_ New York -- 1958 _

“Are you almost done with this ridiculousness?” Andromache asks, staring blankly at Niklas from her chair. 

“No,” Niklas says, looking exceptionally pale where he’s sprawled on the floor. “We are only four weeks into Lent.” 

“Ridiculous,” Andromache says, looking to Book for support. “Isn’t this ridiculous? You’re Catholic, aren’t you? And you do not do this, correct?” 

Book, halfway drunk, squints at her vaguely. “Deprive myself for God? No, I do not do this. I think I am supposed to eat fish on Fridays. I do not care for fish.” 

“There’s nothing ridiculous here,” Jussuf says, coming to Niklas’ defense. “Fasting has a long and noble religious history.” 

“Noble,” Niklas repeats weakly. “Though I do not feel this way at the moment.” 

“That’s what you get,” Andromache says. “Only one meal a day and you can’t have any meat? No dairy? No alcohol? You love those things. I love those things.” 

“I miss eating cheese,” Niklas says, rolling onto his side and hugging his belly. “Oh God. Soft cheese and cured meat. Wine. Butter on fresh bread.” 

“Pizza,” Book says. 

“Pizza!” Niklas rolls over again, wide eyed, and points vaguely at Book. “Yes, Book, pizza. Any pizza. American pizza even.” 

It’s the first genuine fast Niklas has done for Lent in centuries. It was common practice but has clearly, if Book is any example to go by, fallen out of fashion. Niklas had decided this was the year to observe Lent as he used to, when he and Jussuf would both fast religiously, their weeks of observance often slightly overlapping. 

“Brie and raspberry scones,” Jussuf says, remembering a favorite recipe, and Niklas groans as though he’s been shot. 

“Brie! Brie, mozzarella, gouda, oscypek with cranberries! Oh, why must I suffer,” Niklas sighs, allowing his hands to fall over his head in defeat. As he does, his shirt pulls up and bares his stomach. Jussuf spots the curve of his ribcage, how it shifts sharply under the thin skin of his side, and feels his heart sink. 

Andromache catches it too, and then, strangely enough, Book notices. He was a parent once, Jussuf remembers. Maybe he misses having someone to take care of. Whatever the reason, Andromache clears her throat and subtly drags a concerned Book to the kitchen.

Jussuf steps carefully around Niklas’ sprawling limbs and kneels at his side, cupping his cheek in his hand. His jaw is sharp against Jussuf’s palm, and his eyes have begun to take on the hungry edge Jussuf remembers all too painfully from their past. Though this -- a voluntary fast, with a nightly meal and a loving family -- is nowhere near as painful as starving together in the Mediterranean heat, Jussuf is not sure Niklas’ body can recognize the difference.

“You are not small, my love,” Jussuf says delicately, and rolls his eyes at Niklas’ suggestively quirked eyebrows. “That is not meant to be an innuendo. What I mean to say is that I do not think this fast is doing you good. You need more. You are not staying healthy.” 

Niklas frowns slightly until Jussuf moves to hold his side, his fingers slotting neatly into the evident curve of his ribs. “I see,” Niklas says, closing his eyes and relaxing, allowing his head to loll to the side. “You may have a point. I cannot think clearly.” 

Jussuf clicks his tongue and captures Niklas’ hand in his. It’s cool to the touch, so Jussuf holds it close to his chest. “Whatever you think is best, you should do. But,” he says, pressing a kiss to the cold hand in his, “at the very least you must eat more when you break fast at night. I cannot bear to see you like…” he trails off, unwilling to speak painful memories into their quiet living room.

“I understand,” Niklas says, reaching up to stroke Jussuf’s beard. “And I will adjust. Believe it or not, I dislike going hungry as much as you dislike watching it. The sun is almost set. Would you like to make dinner? With me?” 

Jussuf leans into Niklas’ gentle touch. “Of course.”

_ Palermo -- Modern Day _

“I am starving,” Nicky complains, sprawled dramatically across the safe house’s couch. 

Joe’s heart drops for a moment before he remembers the time they are in -- they are not dying of malnutrition on blood-soaked battlefields, nor are they living off foraged plants on a journey through the eastern Mediterranean or sick with consumption. Instead, they live in the beautiful modern era where it is much less common, though unfortunately still possible, to starve to death. They live in the age of the corner store, of tap water and CVS. His Nicky will not die of hunger today, not on Joe’s watch.

“You are no such thing,” Joe says, brushing away his momentary worry and glancing into the oven. “The bread will be done in less than an hour, if you can be patient.” 

“Be patient, he tells me. Joe. Yusuf. Why did we not start to cook earlier.” 

“Shower before eating,” Joe says. “Especially when we are both covered in blood.” 

“I am wasting away,” Nicky informs him, giving him a mock-serious look, but otherwise remaining sprawled comfortably over the couch. “Soon there will be no Nicky left, just bones.” 

“Well we cannot have that,” Joe says, finally taking pity on his husband. He brings a bowl of grapes over to the couch, and gently knocks Nicky’s knees apart so he can sit between them. Nicky agreeably spreads his legs, drawing a calf around Joe’s back to pull him in closer. 

“Hello,” Joe says, leaning up for a kiss, which he promptly receives. 

“Hello,” Nicky answers, shifting to a half-sitting position. “I missed you.” 

“And I you,” Joe says, though he was only in the kitchen for an hour. “What’s this about you wasting away, my love?” 

The corners of Nicky’s eyes crinkle with a barely suppressed smile. “Can you not see how terribly I am suffering? Surely I must be disappearing before your eyes.” 

Joe looks him over. Nicky fills out his clothes attractively, broad chest pulling his t-shirt taut, a sliver of soft stomach exposed as the fabric rides up. Nicky catches his admiring gaze and flexes ostentatiously, showing off the strength in his well-defined biceps in a rare moment of levity at his own expense. 

“Yes, just a slip of a man, I see it now,” Joe laughs, reaching out to test the firm warmth of his husband’s biceps, his shoulders, his chest, simply because he can. “A brave man, to suffer through so much. How you will make it another minute I can hardly imagine. It is good I have brought provisions.” 

“My hero,” Nicky says, reaching out to steal a grape. Joe tuts and pulls the bowl out of reach. “Do not strain yourself, beloved. It is best that I should feed you myself, no?” 

Nicky’s expression softens, his pale eyes warm with love. “Ah, you spoil me, my love. Yes, I would be amenable to that.” 

Joe smiles and presses a grape against Nicky’s lips, grinning even more when Nicky’s tongue swipes lightly against the pads of his fingers. 

The bowl of grapes disappears slowly as the scent of baking bread fills the house. At last they finish it between the two of them, and Joe discards the bowl onto the coffee table. “Better?” he asks, but knows by the sleep-soft pleasure in the lines of Nicky’s face that it is. 

“Yes,” Nicky says, reclining fully on the couch, looking up at Joe from beneath. 

“Good,” Joe says. “No husband of mine shall go hungry in my house,” he continues, aiming for teasing but not quite making it past quietly serious. 

Nicky’s expression cracks slightly and then resettles into one of intense understanding. “I know this.” 

“Yes? I will always take care of you as long as I can,” Joe whispers, as though it is an important secret, as though he hasn’t pledged these words so regularly over the past centuries Nicky surely knows them as well as his own name. 

“I am taken care of,” Nicky reassures him. He laces their fingers together for a moment, palm to palm, and then places Joe’s hands on his waist. “No problems here, see?” 

Joe kneads his palms into Nicky’s torso slightly, not enough to hurt, but hard enough to feel the softness under his hands and the thick layer of hard muscle beneath that. He exhales, a long, slow breath as he tucks away images of Nicky dead or dying in various states of starvation. Instead, he fills his mind, and his hands, with this Nicky: powerful and healthy, strong and soft in turn. He runs his hands up Nicky’s sides, rejoices privately in the fact he cannot count each rib or abdominal muscle by sight or feel, delights in the way his flesh, hot to the touch, yields willingly to gentle pressure. Joe, giving in to some deep urge he cannot quite parse, hikes up Nicky’s shirt and buries his face in the man’s stomach, nosing at the spot where -- praise God -- the curve of his belly presses over his waistband.

Nicky laughs, stomach tensing slightly. “Yes, no problems here. Thanks to all our cooking.” He pinches gently at the skin above his waistband, laughing again when Joe pushes his hand away to kiss at the spot over and over until every vestige of redness fades.

“You do not mind it,” Nicky says after a few minutes of Joe pressing kiss after kiss into the curve of his stomach. He does not ask; it’s simply an observation, not an expression of vanity or self-consciousness. After so many years together, he knows whatever shape he takes, however his appearance may change, or not change, over time, he will always be the most lovely thing in the world to Joe. 

“I do not mind it,” Joe confirms anyway, because it is what a good husband should say, and it is what he truly thinks. He rubs his cheek against Nicky’s stomach, smiling when Nicky laughs again. His beard must tickle. “In fact, I love it.”

That makes Nicky’s eyebrows raise incrementally, but he says nothing, just holds Joe tighter. Joe rests his weight on Nicky, his head on Nicky’s shoulder. They breathe quietly together, chests expanding and contracting against each other. After a few more breaths, Joe turns his head for a slow, lingering kiss. He hardly notices that he’s returned to squeezing the softness over Nicky’s hips until the man draws Joe’s hands up to his mouth to kiss. “You are an odd man,” Nicky says finally, rubbing a socked foot against Joe’s calf. “But you are my odd man.” 

“Odd?” Joe protests, but only manages to sit up partially before Nicky stands under their combined weight and sweeps Joe clean off his feet without any evident sign of strain. 

“Odd,” Nicky confirms, kissing him gently, still holding him. “Now let’s go see if your bread is finished. I think it is my turn to feed you.”

Joe laughs as he’s deposited onto a kitchen chair. He watches as Nicky reaches up to pull plates out of the cabinet, appreciating the strong lines of his body. This is how he loves best to see his Nicky; full, content, and loved, the proof of their mutual care evident in the broadness of his chest, the easy power of his movements, and the gentle softness of his stomach. 

“What?” Nicky asks, when he catches Joe staring. 

“I love you,” Joe says simply. 

Nicky smiles. “And I you.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Hey!! This is my first fic for TOG but I really look forward to writing more!! I’m AMRv_5 on twitter and tumblr — come say hi, throw a prompt my way, or just hang out!!! 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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